Sunday, 31 July 2016

A busy, but successful day all round. My new OS X EI Capitan installed beautifully, which surprised me – but there was one major hiccup..... all my emails that had been archived last week have vanished! That's a few thousand emails and the same in my sent box – this is very frustrating as I never bothered copying most email addresses into my Address Book!!! The good news though, is that my Adobe Photoshop is now working! There are lots of new things to learn on my new OS system, but haven't really got the time to investigate everything right now. I will have to email the Apple Engineers about my old emails and see if they can be retrieved.
I had to go to work today, which was rather frustrating, when good birds were turning up. After arriving home later, a Western Purple Swamphen came up as a Mega on the pager, at Minsmere RSPB and a first for Britain if accepted, I was told!!! I wanted to go, but couldn't go – the thought of driving two hours each way after doing a day's work, just didn't tempt me enough. I continued to think about it and realised that it would be pretty crazy doing this after work and opted for an evening at Titchwell RSPB instead.

As I walked along the main path at Titchwell, the pager bleeped up with Stone Curlew on the freshmarsh! Perfect timing! I passed a birder who kindly told me the exact location, but just before Island Hide I saw the Stone Curlew fly over the main path west and land on the lavender marsh. I spent the evening watching this cracking bird, feeding and preening amongst the vivid purple lavender plants – watching this Stone Curlew amongst the flowers was awesome to say the least! Warden Paul Eele was here, along with Geoff, Pat and a few others. I was captivated by this bird – it couldn't have looked any prettier amidst the purple lavender and with the odd bee bumbling around and the setting sun, it was the perfect scene. I took several phone-scoped videos and watched this bird until 9pm! Also saw two Barn Owls hunting over Thornham, pointed out by Geoff.

There was a massive selection of waders on the freshmarsh, but I was so enthralled by the Stone Curlew, I didn't really pay much attention to the east side of the main path! Birds I did manage to see in the failing light were: tons of gulls, Avocets, Black-tailed Godwits, Starlings, Redshanks, Dunlin, Ruff, Cormorants, Heron, Teal etc.

Suffolk HighlightsWESTERN PURPLE SWAMPHEN on pool behind South hide at 2.05pm for 2nd day at Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk [one in Morbihan, Brittany, France on 20th July].Caspian Tern at Minsmere RSPB.Citrine Wagtail juv. on pool 1.25pm-1.33pm only, south of South Pool at Minsmere RSPB.

Lincolnshire HighlightsWhite-rumped Sandpiper at Frampton Marsh RSPB.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! WESTERN PURPLE SWAMPHEN on pool behind South hide at 2.05pm for 2nd day at Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk [one in Morbihan, Brittany, France on 20th July].MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off Mucar Links, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek on sandbank SW of Point Quay, Cornwall.

Saturday, 30 July 2016

I had all kinds of things planned for today, but as often turns out, I didn't have time for everything. My first job this morning involved speaking to Liam, the Apple Engineer again, to fine tune my MacBook Pro and do some final checks and another back-up before I update and install OS X EI Capitan 10.11.6. Jobs around the house and then had to go into town to do some errands for Mother and myself and then did the dreaded supermarket run.

Father had a mild chest infection I was informed last week and was treated with antibiotics – the GP said she could hear a slight crackling on his chest. Father seemed fine when I saw him early this evening. He was quite alert and in a grumpy mood! He was also in an emotional mood and there were tears and requests to go home to his own bed. I had to explain again, why he couldn't go home. When I asked him why he didn't like it here, his reply was 'too many people here', which I can understand, but he will have to get used to it I'm afraid. He said he was hungry and had had no dinner and no tea (which he had I was told). He didn't believe me when I said it was now 7.50pm and said he wanted his breakfast!!! I went up to his room and brought some of his chocolates down for him, which he consumed rapidly and also had a whole beaker of drink with me. Looks like I need to replenish the chocolate supply, its almost gone and also top up the toiletries (you have to buy these yourself) – well father's paying for his toiletries from his bank account – he just doesn't know he is!

Went to visit Mother, which was a bit late in the evening, but needed to drop several things off for her. Helped her sort some paperwork out, said hello to the cat and left to go home. Now about to install OS X EI Capitan – just hope it all goes smoothly and I can use any existing software I currently use! Very scared about doing this, but it makes sense to be up-to-date and the Mac will run better and be more protected security wise. If I don't post tomorrow, you'll know its all gone horribly wrong!!!

Lincolnshire HighlightsWhite-rumped Sandpiper at 6.20am only, then flew east at Frampton Marsh RSPB.

MEGA NEWS MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off Mucar Links, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek on sandbank SW of Point Quay, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek, Cornwall.

Lincolnshire HighlightsWhite-rumped Sandpiper from East Hide at Frampton Marsh RSPB.

MEGA NEWS MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off Mucar Links, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek on sandbank WNW of Point, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! BAROLO SHEARWATER at sea, 167mls SW of St Angus from RV. Celtic Explorer, Isles of Scilly.MEGA! SEMIPALMATED PLOVER in NW corner of main lake at Tacumshin, County Wexford, Ireland.MEGA! WESTERN SANDPIPER again on beach off the sluice at Tacumshin, County Wexford, Ireland.MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off Mucar Links, Aberdeenshire.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! WESTERN SANDPIPERagain on main lake just east of sluice at Tacumshin, County Wexford, Ireland.MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off south end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek off Point Quay, Cornwall.

Sunday, 24 July 2016

I was determined to get up early and arrived at the car park for Snettisham RSPB at 6.15am! It was already pretty warm and it was obvious it was going to be a mega hot day. It was nice to be out in the early morning light. I was extremely tired and the walk up to the hides, seemed to take forever. As I crossed over the sea wall to the beach, the flowers either side of the path were abundant with insect life, but hardly any butterflies of note. On that note, my mother is hugely disappointed at the lack of butterflies in her garden this year – her Buddhelia's are normally abundant with butterflies, but she's hardly seen any so far. Little Egrets were feeding in the pool, Lapwings, juv. Whitethroats flitting about in the hawthorn bushes, Linnets and lots of Pied Wagtails around today. On the mudflats there were hundreds of waders, including large numbers of Dunlin, Sanderlings, Turnstones, Oystercatchers, Black-tailed Godwits, Redshanks, Curlew, Golden Plover, Ringed Plovers, lots of gulls including 1 Med Gull and several Common and Little Terns whizzing past.

Went into the Rotary Hide, but no sign of the Caspian Tern, which was the main reason I had come to Snettisham this morning. Common Terns on the islands, along with Cormorants, Dunlins, Black-tailed Godwits etc. 6 Little Egrets lounging around on the far bank and the usual Mallards and Greylags around. Went as far as Shore Hide and then slowly made my way back. Several wonderful Mulleins lining the path to the hide. Just past the Rotary hide, I bumped into Phil (from Holme) and Chris Knights! I stopped them with chitchat for far too long – nice to catch up with them and Chris looked really well. We discussed technology, mishaps, birds and life! Several local birders turning up as I made my way back. The White-rumped Sandpiper came up on the pager before I left, but I hadn't got the energy to walk back. However, if the Caspian Tern had been found again, I would have had to struggle back! The tide was quite high on the shingle ridge now and I had wonderful views of flocks of Dunlin, Sanderling, Turnstones, Oystercatchers and a couple of Ringed Plovers feeding on the shoreline, not far from me – lovely to watch them running along the edge of the shingle as ripples of water cascaded around them.

It was boiling hot as I walked back to the car park. I don't really like carrying scope and camera, especially in hot weather, but sometimes you need both. Hit the air-conditioning button and cruised along the A149 to Mother's house at Holme. There was a massive traffic jam from the end of the Dersingham bypass, which forced me to drive into Snettisham village, through Sedgeford, Ringstead and on to Holme, which was a chilled and traffic free journey! Well, that was until I passed a massive 4x4 on the Ringstead hill, who was driving faster than me (yep!) and A. didn't want to drive next to the verge or B. slow down.

The joy of being in my parent's house in this hot weather is bliss – its always cool. Cool in the winter and cool in the summer! Mother looked tired and was getting stressed about visiting father. The cat was chilling on the sofa. We decided to visit father after lunch. We arrived at Summerville House Care Home in Heacham, just after 2pm. The residents had just had their Sunday Roast and dessert and with the heat, the majority of them were dozing in their chairs, including father. He did wake up a bit later and let me help him with his coffee.

Later we took Father outside the front of the care home in his wheelchair and sat on the bench with him, adjacent to my car. Sitting here, you are overlooking horse meadows lined by a mature hedge and telegraph wires – good birding territory! Bee-eater on the wires one day would be good, nice to dream. We gave father a raspberry trifle we had bought for him. I did a manicure and hand massage for him and we sat and chatted. It was nice to sit here, just the three of us. Mother went off to chat to a lady tending to her horses – I knew exactly why, Mother had spotted some horse manure! She returned saying all the horse manure is free (wants it for her garden). I replied 'it may well be free, but its not going in my car!' We took father back indoors at just before 5pm and left shortly after that. He looked pretty settled and well, we both thought today. The traffic leaving the coast was at a standsill as we headed home, so there would no point in me returning to King's Lynn for a good while yet.

Returned to Holme. I was going to Titchwell RSPB for a while, but was so exhausted from the last few days, I dozed on the sofa on and off and then left at about 8.30pm. I drove home in steady traffic, no queueing for me! Back to work tomorrow.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off south end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek off Point Quay, Cornwall.

Saturday, 23 July 2016

So, when I got up this morning, the process we were doing yesterday, did not succeed, just webmailed the Mac Engineer, Liam. Waiting for him to ring me.

10am. We decided to scrap the 'partitioning' of the drive and currently carrying out Carbon Copy Cloner of my hard drive. Also, I didn't realise that you could sync everything on your browser – I use Firefox, so all my bookmarks are saved now whatever happens!

12pm. The Carbon Copy Cloner worked a treat until it got to about 85%, when after two hours it came to a grinding halt. It had found some dodgy files, obviously the same dodgy files that the 'Time Machine' didn't want to copy yesterday. But, as Liam explained to me, because Carbon Copy Cloner is a third party piece of software, it will more than probably copy everything, but just miss out the corrupted files. It hovered on 85% for AGES and everything kept freezing. Liam said he would ring back again at 1.30pm. In the end it took almost 5 hours to copy! Liam was obviously on another call and wasn't able to call back until about 2.15pm. Note: he leaves at 4.30pm!

2.15pm. We checked all the files had copied properly and then the next stage was installing the Mac installation DVD, which I was given lots of instructions to follow, including updating the original software etc and then asked to email back when I had done everything. All of this took until 4.30pm.

I was handed over to Liam's colleague Steven, who kindly assisted me until about 6.20pm. The next job was to use 'Migration Assistant' to copy everything from this morning's copy of the hard drive, onto my new internal hard drive..... BUT, Migration Assistant did not recognise my external hard drive to copy everything, which was possibly because of my previous corrupted files I was told. So with Steven's help, we had to choose what we needed to copy manually and back up each section – ready to lose my mind completely by this point!!! Which also means, that I have now lost my Adobe Photoshop CS5. I was extremely pleased that I had spent several hours over the last couple of days, copying all my photos onto external hard drives! I asked Steven to help me load up Apple Mail and Internet before he finished the phone call, which he did, but it played up for a while and I would never have been able to do it by myself. I have terrible luck with emails and internet or is a TalkTalk thing!!!

HUGE thanks to Steven and Liam who have helped me out enormously. Anyway, I was left alone to put the rest of my Mac back together. Found Firefox and downloaded that and synced my tabs and bookmarks back. Installed my printer disk, iWorks disk, imported my Address book back (good job I exported that on a DVD yesterday), installed a new Adobe Flash. Then I started to copy stuff back into my Mac including 2015/16 pictures (SLR and iphone), Documents and various other folders. In the middle of all this, my internet failed, no Apple Mail and no landline phone! Lots of swear words at this point and raised BP!

I spent ages trying to sort this, including unplugging wires from the router, turning back on, restarting the computer etc etc. I was putting off the inevitable – I was going to have to ring TalkTalk. Every conversation I have with them makes me angry. Phoned them up and spoke to someone who hadn't got a clue what to do at all, no surprise there – one of their suggestions was to unscrew the BT box in the wall, which I refused to do – I have had this suggestion before in the past, there is NO need for this at all. They ended up asking me to turn the router off for 30 minutes then ring back if it still wasn't working, so I did. 40 minutes later and it still wasn't working. Phoned TalkTalk again, sigh, sigh, sigh. The person I spoke to this time, also didn't know how to fix it and ended up suggesting the same thing, about unscrewing the box etc. I blew my top at this point and long story short, slammed the phone down in a rage! Switched router off and mac and went to the garage shop at 11.30pm to buy some comfort food!I have not left the house since I got home from work on Wednesday night and it felt weird going out in the car. My mission was to top up with lots of chocolate, cakes and everything I could think of to console myself! I grabbed reduced berry tarts, apple turnovers, chocolate, bananas, lunch for tomorrow, ice-creams – think that covers it! On my return home, I put the shopping away, well most of it! Turned on the Mac and copied some picture folders over and then watched a bit of TV whilst it was copying. Washed up, made a cup of tea and then dared to turn on the Router! MIRACLE, IT WAS WORKING, I could have danced! Celebrated with a cornetto ice-cream, another cup of tea and started work on the Norfolk Bird News and this post.Next job, although not until another day, subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan which is £8.57 a month – this includes Photoshop and Lightroom. Then a big job of updgrading my Mac from OS10.6.8 to OSE EI Capitan, which is the newest OS and means my Mac will be totally up to date and like new, hopefully! That was a very long three days, three days I was supposed to spend with my family, birding etc. But, I suppose it could have happened in the middle of Autumn migration, so I maybe I shouldn't grumble too much!GOOD NIGHT, or should I say GOOD MORNING!

MEGA NEWSMEGA! WESTERN SANDPIPER at sluice, Tacumshin, County Wexford, Ireland.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off south end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1.25mls SE of Devoran, still at Restronguet Creek WNW of Point, Cornwall.

So, to follow on from my post yesterday – I spent most of the night and until the early hours, removing ALL my photos, iphone photos, blog photos, documents, Address Book Contacts and the list goes on....... All items are copied twice on two external hard drives.

I then plugged in my third external hard drive to attempt the Time Machine back up again. Surely removing all those files would have helped to carry out the back up?

NO it didn't! It had failed again, when I got up at 8am this morning!!! Exasperated is an understatement. Basically, the corruption on the Disk Utility is not allowing me to back up my hard drive. I webmailed Liam, the Mac Engineer who I couldn't get hold of for a while. He suggested using 'Carbon Copy Cloner' to back up my mac. Because I had taken off all my important files, this allowed Liam to do a 'erase and partition' the hard drive (shrinking the size) – don't fully understand this, but this would mean that the Carbon Copy Cloner would have an easier job to copy the hard drive. Liam set this up (by screen sharing) and then waited – but it was taking so long, he said he would phone back in half an hour. Half an hour later, he phoned back and it still hadn't got very far. I said I would webmail him when it was finished, but it carried on all afternoon.

Liam finishes work at 4.30pm – by webmail, he said we can't do any more until this is complete 'We will need to let the process finish before we can continue, cancelling the process/turning off the machine etc may cause damage to the drive which we want to avoid at all costs....' So that mean't I wouldn't be able to continue with this massive job, until Liam is back at work again tomorrow (Saturday) at 8am. As I type at 22.40, its still not finished 'shrinking'. I really don't know what is going on! Also I wasn't expecting to spend a third day indoors – but its looking that way. If its not sorted by 4.30pm tomorrow I'm stuffed, as Liam is not back at work again until Tuesday and works 8am-4.30pm, which is no good to me whilst I'm at work! So if I want to continue sorting this with him, I will have to wait until the following Saturday at 8am!!!

If my blog posts and normal daily bird news does not appear over the next few days, you will know that my MacBook Pro has died, so bare with! I'm not insured for 'accidentals', so don't know what will happen regarding buying another. I will pray that this 'partition' completes overnight. If it does, which is not looking good, but IF it does, we then have to Carbon Copy Clone my hard drive and then take everything off the Mac and re-install the disks and all programmes that were on there and printer connections etc etc. EXHAUSTED AND FED-UP!

Another from the archives. The switching on ceromony for the electricity at Holme Bird Observatory! I can remember helping to dig that trench, along with mother, father and John Brown. Mother said that she and John Brown dug most of it! Lynn News & Advertiser (as it was called then) 2nd May 1980.

Just dug this out of the archives – a newspaper cutting from 8th November 1979! Eastern Daily Press. I can remember having that photo taken and feeling very nervous about being photographed! I can't remember the name of the couple photographed with father and I.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 4 miles SE of Truro still at Ruan Lanihorne on Fal Estuary opposite nature reserve, Cornwall.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.

Good job I'm not at work today. I have not been able to send emails for weeks using my Apple Mail account and have spent hours trying to sort it myself and with phone calls to TalkTalk and Apple - it has been massively frustrating, not being able to reply to several important emails. When I finished work last night I decided I wasn't going to bed until this is resolved.

So I have been on the phone to talktalk for 1.5 hours and then to Apple since 8.30pm last night until 6am this morning (not joking), then a call back from a specialist Apple Engineer at 8am today - just finished. Long story short: my Mac is corrupted and needs to be wiped completely and original disks installed!!! Currently backing entire Mac up on 'Time Machine' which will take most of the day, so no leaving the house to go birding or anywhere! Then I have to contact the engineer again, who will then help to wipe my computer and re install everything again!!! It's a good job he found it was corrupted, as he explained that the Mac would have got slower and slower and then just pack up!!!! It has got slower - I just thought it was because my MacBook Pro is a 2010 model! Not how I had intended to start my much needed four day break off!!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

UPDATE 7pm!
Time Machine was running so slowly, that I realised it was going to take far longer than all day, so spoke to Liam, the Apple Engineer who said not to worry how long it takes, as it was important to back everything up before we go any further. Liam finished work today at 4.30pm and is back in again tomorrow at 8am until 4.30pm and then again on Saturday only. The next time he is back then is Monday when I am at work all week – so if this isn't sorted by end of Saturday, I will have to wait until the following Saturday to complete the re-install of my Mac.

After having a night of no sleep, I have obviously been sleeping alot today. I decided to get up and have a look at how the 'Time Machine' back-up was coming along and my face fell. A lovely message saying the back-up had FAILED!!! It tells me to try again later, NO, I want to back it up NOW and if not to use Disk Utility to repair your back-up disk. That is exactly what Liam needs to do to repair my corrupted hard drive, but can't risk it until everything is backed up – catch 22!!!

Liam is not back in the office again until 8am in the morning, lovely time off work I am going to have off over my four days!

SO, Plan B. Now backing up all my important stuff eg 2015/6 photos etc etc on my two external hard drives individually (not through Time Machine). For those of you who are not Mac savvy, Time Machine is a Mac dedicated back-up system, that part of a Mac package, that for me IS NOT BL**DY WORKING!!! TOTALLY P*SSED OFF!

MEGA NEWSMEGA! GREATER SAND PLOVER at east end of Tacumshin then flew off NE (7.35am to 8.08am only), County Wexford, Ireland.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 4 miles SE of Truro still at Ruan Lanihorne on Fal Estuary opposite nature reserve, Cornwall.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, 500yds west of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off south end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.

My poor father is really going through the mill – another incident at the care home today. Both yesterday's and today's incident involving another resident. He's okish physically, but that isn't the point. Not a good week all round and today was disgustingly HOT at work – moan, moan, moan!!!

I am sooooooo fed-up with the customer service from TalkTalk which is
non-existant. For several weeks now, I have not been able to send any
emails, which has lost me money on photos requests etc. Neither TalkTalk
or Apple are able to solve my problem. I have spend hours trying to
solve it myself. This is the message which comes up when I open Apple
Mail 4.6 (I'm using MacBook Pro laptop and OS 10.6.8). The Sent box in
mail is constantly whirring round. Can't send an email to myself or
anyone else. All account settings checked with TalkTalk – mind you, they
change with each person you speak to. They havn't got a clue what they
are doing.

It was passed on to the 'Technical Team', who have been constantly ringing my landline during the day I discovered, on returning home from work this evening! I mean, do they think I'm a lady that lunches?! NO I bl**dy go to work, FULL TIME!!!! Then I get a text message saying the following:

"We have tried to contact you by telephone on a number of occasions to try and discuss your recent complaint. Unfortunately, we have been unable to speak to you and have not received a reply to our messages. If we do not hear from you in 28 days, we will assume that everything has been resolved and therefore close your complaint down on our records."

Well, for a start, they have not left any messages on my landline. So I reply to the above text and guess what? It's one of those aggravating text messages that allows them to text you with whatever they want, but YOU are not able to text them back!!!!!!!!!!! ANGRY is an understatement! Now...... if they can text my mobile, why can't they RING my mobile – I have had no missed calls on my mobile today! Hmmmmm....... let me guess, its going to cost them money to ring my mobile. Well, TalkTalk – its COST me money, alot of money, not having my email account working properly. GET IT SORTED PLEASE!

I have linked this post to @TalkTalkCare on twitter, so hopefully the above will passed on to the technical team dealing with me. If you are reading this, please don't ring my landline during my working day, I'm not there!!! Ring after 5pm or ring my mobile – its quite simple!

Monday, 18 July 2016

I hadn't intended on visiting my Father this evening, but I had to because of an incident that happened earlier today. Can't really go into it, but it was very upsetting. Just wish I could bundle my Father in the car and take him home to mine – I would love to look after him myself, but sadly there is no one else to pay the mortgage but me, so there is no choice. I am fiercely protective of my family and it breaks my heart when something happens, that's out of your control.

As expected, it was boiling hot at work today and too hot to sit in the shade at lunchtime, so had to sit in the office – tomorrow is going to be hotter still, I don't see how it can be hotter than today!!!

Spent an hour on the phone with TalkTalk this evening and STILL the
manager couldn't sort it – it has now been 'escalated to the network
team'!!!

I have just read on the BBC News website that someone has attacked commuters with an axe and knife on a train in Germany!!! What the hell is going on in this world! Every day there is something atrocious happening. I can't see world peace happening in my lifetime, or at any time in the future!

Sunday, 17 July 2016

I've had a weekend of chilling, or laziness, whichever you would like to call it! Went to visit my Father with Mother yesterday at Summerville Care Home. Father was quite sleepy, but at least there was no shouting. Vivien was there too and had helped him eat an egg sandwich for his tea, just before we arrived. We took father into the garden in his wheelchair for a short time before we left. Vivien, Mother and I then returned to Holme for the evening.

I don't do hot weather and queues of traffic, so stayed at home today and tackled the garden, which is like a jungle. Made a good start on the front garden, but still lots more to do and then I need to find where the back garden is!!!

I have been spending far too much time trying to solve my Apple Mail problem. I still havn't sorted it. I can receive emails, but can't send via Apple Mail, which I have been doing for years. My sent box says emails have been sent with date and time, with no indication that the recipient has not actually received them. I think this problem has been going on for longer than I realised, possibly back to May, which would explain why I have not had replies from a good number of people. TalkTalk said I can use Webmail whilst sorting this, but that doesn't work either! TalkTalk Webmail has a In Box, but no Send Box!!! I will contact TalkTalk and Apple for the last time tomorrow evening, after that I will have to pay someone to sort it for me.

Its going to be a hot week, but luckily I have a long weekend coming up! I'm off this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday! The Quail reported in paddocks at Fenway, Heacham is yards from where my Father is – hope to hear that this week!

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off south end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 4 miles SE of Truro still, at Ruan Lanihorne on Fal Estuary, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off south end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 4 miles SE of Truro still, at Ruan Lanihorne on Fal Estuary, Cornwall.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 3/4 miles west of Antony, again on River Lynher at Wacker Quay, Cornwall.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN flew over Plym Estuary towards Laira Bridge, Devon.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe at Boat Cove, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 3/4 miles west of Antony, still on River Lynher at Wacker Quay, Cornwall.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe and 1/2 mile west of Perran Sands, Cornwall.

Saturday, 9 July 2016

I drove to Holme on Saturday afternoon and picked up mother to visit my father, who wasn't in the best of moods and didn't really welcome us at all. Understandably, his new dosage of Risperidone is still kicking in, so he isn't going to feel exactly brilliant, poor man. He did manage most of his beaker of coffee with me and one chocolate, but shortly before we arrived, he hadn't really eaten much tea. We stayed quite a long time – so hard to cope with seeing him like this and especially difficult for my mother, who constantly feels guilty about 'giving up'. Stopped in Hunstanton on the way back to Holme, to pick up some shopping for mother and then we went to the Indian Restaurant to buy a takeaway and enjoyed a vegetable biryani and nan bread between us, back at Holme.

So, an update from my email issues on Friday: No technical team bothered to phone from TalkTalk on Saturday evening at all, so I rang them at 9.55pm. The lady I spoke to wasn't able to tell me why nobody had phoned me – she spend 43 minutes on the phone with me and didn't solve anything, then cut me off. I waited and waited, presuming she would call back (they have both my mobile and landline numbers), but guess what? She didn't. I phoned TalkTalk AGAIN and this time I was on the phone for even longer, but with someone who spent even longer trying to resolve it – I was told that all the settings as far as TalkTalk were concerned were correct and that it must be an Apple Mail Server issue and that I needed to contact Apple.

So I attempted to log in to 'Apple Chat', but after inputting my serial number as requested for my Macbook Pro, I was told by an automated message, that it wasn't supported any longer (2010 model)!!! So, I got crafty and logged in to say I had an email issue with my iphone 6, just to get talking to them! This worked very nicely indeed and at last I got some assistance. BUT, I was on this chat thing for AGES and long story short, I need to upgrade my OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to OS X El Capitan, which is available to download free from the App Store, but, yes another but...... If I upgrade to this, I'm at risk of losing my very, very old version of Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended Version 12.0 x64 – forums I have read, say that this does not work on OS X E1 Capitan!!! So then I have to upgrade my photoshop, but its all changed now, you can't buy the Adobe Photoshop DVD's in a nice fancy box any more, you have to subscribe to Adobe and pay a monthly fee of £8.57 to have Photoshop and Lightroom. It may sound cheap, but currently I pay nothing. I also havn't backed up my Mac for AGES as 'Time Machine' slows down the entire system. I finished the mac 'chat' as they recommended that I back up my Mac with 'Time Machine', before I installed the new OS version (if I do). I left Time Machine backing up my Mac overnight.

SUNDAY 10th JulyTime Machine was still running Sunday morning, which I had expected, there is alot to back up, so I left it running for the rest of the day.

I had to go to work and it was a very hard day, much more so than normally on a Sunday – Louise, Lily and I didn't finish until 5.15pm. When I returned home from work at 5.30pm on Sunday, I walked straight into the living room to look at my Mac. The screen had a big fat message staring at me, which said the following:

WHY NOT?!!!!!!!!

So, with a massive sigh, I decided to delete everything in my MacBook Pro Book (external hard drive that I was copying my MacBook Pro Laptop onto). This external hard drive has lots of very old back-ups and I thought that deleting everything would clear it for a clean new back-up to be copied onto. So I dragged everything off into the waste bin, but for some reason it would not clear! My waste bin is empty right now, but if I plug in the external hard drive, it reads that my waste bin is full again! So nothing has been deleted off the external hard drive, even though I dragged it all the waste bin and I have a full waste bin that won't delete either!

Arrggghhhh!!! I GIVE UP FOR TODAY!

Any Mac Whizz Kids out there PLEASE?

What a day for Sport!!! SO pleased that Andy Murray won his second Wimbledon Final and equally pleased that Portugal won – they fought like warriors and deserved to win. I think France thought it would be a breeze with Ronaldo out so early, how wrong were they!

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN at St John's Lake at Torpoint, Cornwall.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe and 500yds west of Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! BAROLO SHEARWATER possible, flew past Helvick Head, County Waterford, Ireland.

FRIDAYHuge apologies to all those that have
sent emails requesting pictures etc. I have replied to you all and sent
numerous other emails to people. Today I was wondering why I have not
had replies back, so emailed myself a test and more tests and have
discovered to my horror, that none of my sent emails are sending!!! How
far back this goes I don't know!

Now going to ring TalkTalk to find out why, please bare with!!!

UPDATEAfter speaking to customer services at
TalkTalk, it has now got worse. I now can't receive emails either!!! I
was asked to ring back in the morning at 8am and speak to a manager!!!

SATURDAY– UPDATE NUMBER 2!Spent two hours speaking to a 'Manager' today (Saturday morning) who hadn't got a clue what he was doing and repeatedly asked me the same stupid questions eg. 'Do you use webmail?' 'No', I replied, 'I use my Apple Mail account, always have done'. A bit later on in the conversation, he asked me again 'so you use Apple Mail? He continued to repeat everything twice, sometimes three times. I'm sure its done to raise your blood pressure!

I was mentally exhausted at the end of it all, he still couldn't fix it as he didn't understand Mac's for a start! Quote 'The Technical Support Team will contact you by text within 24 hours'. I wont' repeat how I responded to that.... long story short, they will be ringing me at 8pm today, so wherever I am, I have to be home by then. I was so angry I went back to bed!

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN still, 3/4 miles west of Antony, still on River Lynher at Wacker Quay then flew off, then seen off Marine Drive at Torpoint, Cornwall.

Huge apologies to all those that have sent emails requesting pictures etc. I have replied to you all and sent numerous other emails to people. Today I was wondering why I have not had replies back, so emailed myself a test and more tests and have discovered to my horror, that none of my sent emails are sending!!! How far back this goes I don't know!Now going to ring TalkTalk to find out why, please bare with!!!

UPDATEAfter speaking to customer services at TalkTalk, it has now got worse. I now can't receive emails either!!! I was asked to ring back in the morning at 8am and speak to a manager!!!

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 3/4 miles west of Antony, still on River Lynher at Wacker Quay, Cornwall.MEGA! FORSTER'S TERN on west side of Kinvara Bay, Galway Bay, County Galway, Ireland.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN on St John's Lake, north of Millbrook, Cornwall.

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

I had a whirlwind evening to say the least! Flew down town to buy a couple of jumpers for father, order a new nurse's watch from Debenhams and bought some of father's favourite raspberry trifles from Sainsbury's. Went home and grabbed birding gear. Headed for Heacham and visited Father. I could hear him shouting before I entered the care home – not his fault though poor man – Heacham surgery messing about with his medication, long story and new lower dose of respiridone being administered again this evening, so he should be more relaxed over the next day or two, hopefully. It was like magic – my presence and holding his hands, virtually silenced him – the shouting stopped almost instantly, as soon as he realised it was me. Ok, so he was still chuntering away about 'when were we catching the bus...' and 'which hospital this was...' etc, but he calmed alot. I even persuaded him to have two thirds of the raspberry trifle I had bought him. He has lost weight, quite alot looking at him this evening, so obviously he is not eating as much as he did at home with mother, for whatever reason. A pair of Blackbirds were happily feasting on left over sandwich crusts from tea time in the garden. I left father in a fairly peaceful state, as staff took him up to bed at 7.45pm.

The Great Knot has not been reported anywhere today, but I had a feeling that it could still be roosting at Holme, so I headed to the beach. Parked up by the toilet block by the village car park and walked through the golf course to the main beach gap at Holme. It was a very high tide and the sea was almost lapping up to the edge of the path alongside the low dunes and gorse. It was a spectacular sight and the sun setting over the lagoons, marram and beach was stunning. Lots of birds had moved onto higher ground and there was a huge number of Oystercatchers in the roost, so many so that I decided to count them – there were 334 in all! A number of gulls were also in the roost, including Common and Black-headed Gulls. Also saw Sandwich Terns, Common Terns, Little Terns, Ringed Plovers, Sanderling, Turnstones, Shelducks, Meadow Pipits, a couple of Pied Wagtails and a Kestrel. There was also a handful of Knot – about four, but no Great Knot amongst them. I took a lovely little video of a Common Tern preening itself on a shingle ridge. Also took some slow motion video of a Kite Surfer doing acrobatics at Old Hunstanton, with the cliffs in the background. I was glad I wore my coat, as it was very chilly walking back to my car. Headed for home and arrived back at 10.30pm! Phew!

Pictures and videos to be added

Note: all those people requesting to buy Great Knot pictures over the last few days, I will be responding to you all on Wednesday evening, sorry for delay.

MEGA NEWSMEGA!
AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south
of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN 1 mile SW of Calstock, flew south along Tamar Estuary, past Cotehele Quay, Cornwall.

MEGA NEWSMEGA! AMERICAN WHITE-WINGED SCOTER again, 4 miles NNE of Aberdeen just south of Blackdog off north end of golf course, Aberdeenshire.MEGA! GREAT KNOT again on Freshmarsh, Titchwell RSPB, Norfolk.MEGA! HUDSONIAN WHIMBREL still 4 miles east of Penzance, SW of Perranuthnoe and 500yrds west of Boat Cove, Cornwall.MEGA! DALMATIAN PELICAN reported on River Tamar, Plymouth, Devon.MEGA! SHORT-TOED EAGLE possible, flew south over raptor watchpoint at Wykeham Forest, Yorkshire.

Sunday, 3 July 2016

I arrived at Holme just before 7.30am and parked up by the 5-bar gate along the Firs Road. As I got out of the car, a Turtle Dove flew over my head – a lovely start to the morning! I had hoped the Great Knot would be showing at Gore Point again, but another birder informed me he had not seen it this morning, so I headed west along the back of the bungalows and watched and listened to two wonderful Grasshopper Warblers reeling – however, they refused to move from the depths of the hawthorn bush to be photographed! Later on I saw and heard two Med Gulls fly over my head north at 9.20am. Later, I walked out to Gore Point, but returned soon afterwards, when the Great Knot appeared on my pager at Titchwell RSPB.

I then spent most of the day at Mother's house, filing loads of paperwork for her, to make life a whole lot easier for both her and daughters! We had fish 'n' chips for lunch.

I spent the evening looking for the Great Knot at Gore Point again. A Barn Owl was hunting over The Saltings as I walked along the boardwalk and several Whitethroats were active around the hawthorn bushes. As I started to walk to the beach, a message came up on the pager to say the Great Knot was at Holme, but very frustratingly I completely misread the message – sometimes people get directions at Holme wrong and I read it that it was west of Gore Point as it read 'Beach Road' which some people call the 'Firs Road', but the message was totally correct and was in fact west of the main beach gap by the golf course, as I discovered later on!!! I really don't know how I didn't understand or read that properly, but anyway, I messed up, much to my disappointment later. So, I headed west along the beach from Gore Point and could see Gary H. way ahead of me.

The sea was like a mill pond, with gentle ripples trickling on the sands – the setting sun was spectacular and there was hardly a soul on the beach. A couple of seals were inquisitively watching me as they played in the sea and I saw Little Terns, Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers. As I headed towards the golf course end of the beach, I realised my mistake – what I should have done, is to drive back along the Firs Road and park by the toilet block/village car park and I would have been here a long time ago. I bumped into a blog reader called Peter, who had seen the Great Knot in the lagoon, west of the beach gap. I headed in that direction, but I was minutes too late. A huge Knot flock were swirling round and had headed towards Old Hunstanton. A birder appeared behind me, who had put out the earlier news and then also two young lads running, barefoot with huge camera in hand – they all overtook me and joined Gary H. in the far distance. I could see a big flock of Oystercatchers and just beyond them a flock of Knot, but decided not to race up there as the light was fading fast and when I watched the other birders standing there, I didn't see any camera action, so guessed it was either distant for them or not on view. The flocks were a long way along the beach, almost at the beginning of the cliffs at Hunstanton.

I headed back past the lagoon and through the main beach gap at the golf course and returned to my car, via the coastal footpath behind the bungalows – there was a chill in the air now. I saw and heard a Grasshopper Warbler again at 9.45pm! I also watched the presumed same Barn Owl hunting over the marsh again. Headed home to King's Lynn.

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